


the human condition

by softspiderlad



Series: beautiful mind [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Death, F/M, M/M, Post-Endgame, a character study on tony stark, harley and peter help each other through the initial grief, harley keener has big shoes to fill, not a fix it fic, peter parker gets a little numb to the world, tonys dead man he dead i dont want him to be dead but in this fic he still dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-03-30 22:59:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19037257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softspiderlad/pseuds/softspiderlad
Summary: “Tony wanted it to be your choice.”“Because it wasn’t his,” Peter murmurs, staring down at the carpet with a vacant sort of look in his eyes, and Harley thinks that they must be somewhere on the same page, because Harley knows exactly what he’s saying – after Tony’s parents died, the company was thrown upon him unwillingly, and he was never told he had the choice to pass it on to someone else, never had the chance to say no. Now, he’s giving Harley the chance, giving this Peter kid that he’s never met but apparently was just as important to Tony the chance, and he’s giving Morgan the chance, too. They can say no. They get to choose.Harley doesn’t need to think about it anymore.“I’m in.”-OR: i'm still cycling through the stages of grief after endgame and listened to a lot of jon bellion. somehow, that turned into a series.





	1. what if all the things i've done (were just attempts at earning love)

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. this entire series is tied in with specific jon bellion songs! it's not directly inspired by the songs, though - i was listening to jon bellion on shuffle while crying over endgame and slowly a plot came to life in my brain, and this parkner series is the result. each chapter will be titled after a line of the song, and each chapter will open up with some of the lyrics and will say which song it is. in the notes for the description, i will also be listing the order of the songs as i update the series.
> 
> 2\. this series will consist of FOUR FICS (and potentially one shots following the fourth fic if people want them and if any other jon bellion songs fit this fic's universe). the first fic, this one, is called THE HUMAN CONDITION (three chapters). the second will be called THE DEFINITION (four chapters), the third will be BEAUTIFUL MINDS (four chapters), and the fourth will be THE SEPARATION (five chapters) - three of those are titles of jon bellion albums, the other is just based off of a common phrase that jon uses in his music and such, which is also why this series is called the beautiful mind series.
> 
> 3\. this IS parkner centric, and it will be a SLOW BURN. like....... like a SLOW burn. like. they don't actually get together until the third fic.
> 
> 4\. i spent way too much time thinking about this and picking specific songs and trying to make sure the songs tie into the fic well and the fic lines up with the songs and like. i have a job. i have bills to pay. i have dozens of other wip's i should be focusing on, but i loved this idea so much i couldn't resist, so please for the love of god just leave a comment and validate me i'm dying 
> 
> 5\. the series will eventually lead to sexual content (it’ll just be implied and talked about, but not explicit - i don't like writing smut and it's not a necessity so sorry not sorry no smut scenes for u). however, that will not happen in this fic. it is later on in the series.
> 
> 6\. in a way, this series is a very elaborate character study mixed in with writing for a ship that like obviously won't be canon so it's? it's fun it's cool it's great i'm pretty proud of this honestly. it won't be as long word wise as my defining a hero series, where the first fic was like almost 60k words and shit - this series most likely will have a much lower word count, but it will also be a lot more straight to the point and less wordy and rambly. while the defining a hero series is kind of emotion-driven, this is more development-driven, so the long emotional paragraphs i have in that series will be a lot more rare here. that's why the first chapter is like. less than 4k words while chapters for the defining a hero series are like 10k-ish each, lmao. whoops. we'll see.
> 
> i think that's all? i hope so i don't want to keep typing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tony was selfish, but not for himself.

what if where i’ve tried to go

was always here

and the path i’ve tried to cut

was always clear

why has life become a plan

to put some money in my hand

when the love i really need

is stupid cheap

— **stupid deep** by jon bellion

 

“A lot of people say that I’m selfish.”

Tony stares down at his hands, clasped together and hanging between his parted legs, elbows planted on his knees. His shoulders are tense, his jaw clenching and unclenching, his eyes a bit unfocused, not really seeing the room around him. He’s not sure why he’s doing this, really – it feels like resignation, like he’s throwing in the towel and admitting defeat before it’s really begun. Tomorrow is the big day, though, and it’s quite daunting, the knowledge that this could really be it. Make it or break it. Is it possible to break something already so utterly and horribly broken?

He clears his throat, feels his brows knit together slightly as he murmurs, “Maybe they’re right, but I’m not so sure that they are. To be selfish is to only care about the self, right? But I don’t care about me. It’s never been about me, and it never will be about me. It’s about someone else, some _thing_ else, every time.”

It’s not about Tony. It’s about Pepper. It’s about Morgan. It’s about Rhodey, and Happy, and- and—

“I must be selfish, though,” he goes on, chuckling lightly as he forces himself to lean back in his seat, unclasp his hands and flex his fingers slightly, feeling the ache from having been clutching so tightly for so long. Maybe he’s not ready for this. Maybe he doesn’t have the option to not be ready. “I mean, I gotta be, right? ‘Cause I’m not doing this to save the lives of billions. I’m doing this to save two.”

It’s about Peter.

It’s about Harley.

It’s about the kids that he lost.

“Cap asked me about it,” Tony says, and he’s not sure what this recording is for anymore, isn’t sure there was a purpose in the first place, but it’s kind of therapeutic, just letting out his thoughts so no reason at all, so he doesn’t stop himself as he continues. “I’m surprised it took so long, you know? The first thing I said, five years ago, when I came off that ship, was that I lost the kid. I said it five years ago, but it wasn’t until this morning that he asked me what I meant. I guess it would’ve made things worse, though, because it would have just reminded me that he never met P—”

He stops. Blinks, clears his throat, shakes his head. Saying their names is hard, but he has to.

“Cap met Spidey,” Tony says slowly, carefully, “but he never met Peter. Never met Harley, either. He never knew that I already had kids, before Morgan. That those two were… that they were like family to me. That they are family to me, that I couldn’t let myself hope because hoping meant being let down when I couldn’t get them back. None of them knew, and they all… they kept saying that I was lucky. That I didn’t lose any of the people I loved most. I still had Pepper, and Rhodey, and Happy, and they were all that really mattered, right? God, they had no fucking clue. They didn’t…”

Peter Parker died in Tony’s arms. The ashes of Peter Parker were stuck to his skin, to his clothes, mingling in the air that Tony breathed as he tried to hold back the horrified sobs that were bubbling helplessly in the back of his throat. Peter Parker said he was sorry before he died, and Tony couldn’t do anything but hold him tighter and hope it was enough to keep him together, in one piece, alive.

It wasn’t.

Harley Keener died driving his sister to school after their alarms woke them up late, his hands on the wheel of the car that Tony gifted him what feels like lifetimes ago. Harley Keener died afraid as the cars on the road started to swerve as people disappeared, and he had tried to hit the brakes, to pull the vehicle to the curb and get them to safety, but he didn’t get the chance before he turned to dust as well. Harley Keener died hoping that, somehow, his sister would be okay without him behind the wheel.

She wasn’t.

Tony lowers his head into his hands, digs the heels of his palms into his eye sockets and wills the burning tears away, refusing to cry over this again. It happens at least once a week, used to happen once or twice a day, back when it was still a fresh wound, but it’s been five years now, and Tony has taken his grief over the loss of these boys and used that loss to motivate him into being the best damn dad he could ever be for Morgan, never raising his voice at her, having a patience that most thought Tony Stark was incapable of, showing her his blueprints and explaining what it all meant whenever she asked. Morgan was his ray of sunshine in the ashy darkness that remained after the snap. Morgan is the reason he feels like it’s okay to have hope again, because they would adore her, Peter and Harley – they would play all of Morgan’s games and watch her favorite movies and take her to get ice cream, take her roller skating, be her family.

“I’m doing this for them,” Tony whispered, not a shameful admission, just a quiet one, muffled by his hands as he scrubs at his face, takes a deep, slow breath, until his heart rate is normal and each breath doesn’t make his lungs ache. “And that might be selfish of me, but I don’t care if it is. I’ll be selfish, then, if it means that they get to come back, if they get to grow up and do great things, like they were supposed to. I won’t be selfish like my dad was to me, not giving a damn about me. I’ll be selfish in the way a parent should be, willing to face hell or high water for their kids. I’ll tear the world apart to get them back, and I’ll be selfish about it, because it’s not being selfish for _me,_ it’s being selfish for _them.”_

Does that make it okay? He’s not sure, but if he’s selfish, he shouldn’t really care. So long as his family ends up okay. But who is his family? Who will he do anything to save?

Pepper, obviously, and Morgan, and Harley and Peter and Rhodey and Happy, and maybe, once upon a time, he would have considered the rest of the Avengers his family, too, but are they still? Do they still care for him like family? Would they fight for him the way he thinks he might fight for them?

Did they ever consider him family in the first place?

Tony lets out a shaky breath, rubs his hands together and tries not to notice the way he’s shaking. “It’s been a long five years,” he says softly, voice strained. “I don’t know how this’ll go, I don’t know if this will work, but… but it’s been a long five years, and I think I’m done waiting to win. I think… I think this is it, you know? This is the final showdown, and I… I have so much I want to say before we do it. I want to tell so many people so many things that I never got to tell them. But I… “

 _I wasn’t raised right,_ he thinks, solemn and resigned. _My dad fucked me up, and my mom was all I had, and when they died, I had nothing even when I had everything. I was too young to run a company, I didn’t know how to manage the responsibility, how to manage myself. Everything scares me. I’m terrified. I got so absorbed in this twisted idea of making my father proud – the same father that never said he loves me, the same father that never fucking cared, yet the idea of disappointing him kept me blinded from things that really matter. I treated Pepper so horribly for so long, I didn’t appreciate having Rhodey in my life, having Happy, and it wasn’t until the weapons I helped create were used to kill innocent people in front of my very eyes that I woke up and saw the truth._

 _I was never meant to be a hero,_ he thinks, painful and sudden. _I’m not cut out for this. I’m selfish and greedy and I care so much that I act like I don’t care at all. Putting the fate of the world in my hands is just a guarantee that the world will be destroyed, because Stark’s don’t fix things, Stark’s don’t save things, Stark’s ruin things and hurt things and make everything worse._

 _I really love being a dad,_ he thinks, gut-wrenching and broken. _Morgan’s existence proves me wrong every day. Stark’s ruin things, but she is not ruined. Stark’s hurt things, but I have never hurt her. Stark’s make everything worse, but she is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Morgan gives me hope, just like Harley and Peter gave me hope, and god, I wish the Avengers were—_

_I wish we could be—_

_I wish we were really a family, a team. I wish I could say with utmost certainty that cared about me even half as much as I have always cared about them. Sometimes I wish I could turn back time and somehow save them from myself, see if they would still be together if it weren’t for me. I always meant the best, I wanted to make things better, to make things work, to cooperate and signs the accords so we could negotiate them, make them better, more accommodable and reasonable. I only meant well._

_Maybe, if we make it out alive, I’ll tell them._ _Maybe I’ll tell them everything._

_Or, maybe—_

“Friday?”

“Yes, Boss?” Friday’s soothing accented voice responds instantly.

“What’s the probability of me surviving this?”

For a long moment, there’s no reply, Tony not moving, Friday not speaking, until, eventually, Friday answers gently, telling him, “You should say what you want to say, Boss.”

All Tony can do is laugh, the sound kind of empty and lacking real humor. “Stop the recording, Fri,” he says instead, because trying to spit out all the words stirring in his stomach feels impossible, even when faced with the implications of his own likely demise. The camera stops filming, and after a moment of hesitation, Tony adds, “Delete it, too.”

“Are you sure you want to do that, Boss?”

Tony isn’t sure about most things, but he nods anyway, tries to keep it casual as he says, “Yeah, I’m sure. I’m gonna record something for Morgan, just in case, but that whole recording can be thrown away.”

Friday isn’t capable of sounding disapproving, but he thinks she would, if she could. “Recording deleted.”

“Good.”

And no one will ever know.

 

 

 

 

Harley Keener thinks a lot as he stands towards the back of the crowd, decidedly not looking at the arc reactor floating across the surface of the lake. He thinks about his mother – now five years older than she had been before he turned to dust – and he thinks about his sister – still in a wheel chair because Harley was never able to hit the brakes – and he doesn’t think about Tony Stark, because thinking about Tony Stark means remembering that Tony Stark is dead, and that’s not something he can fathom. Tony Stark has never been immortal, but Harley feels like Tony Stark was never supposed to die, either.

But he doesn’t want to think about that, so he goes back to thinking about his mom and his sister instead, until that makes him shift from foot to foot in discomfort, stifled by the memory of his mother’s shocked expression and his sister wheeling down the hall and the both of them looking as though they can’t decide if they’re glad he’s back or if they’re worried about trying to fit him in their lives again.

It’s been days for Harley, but it’s been years for them. They moved on. Mama got a husband, Abbie’s only a year younger than him now, and Tony Stark is fucking dead no matter how much Harley tries to deny it. Nothing is okay. _Nothing is okay. Nothing is okay. Nothing—_

“Harley, honey?” Pepper says, waving a hand in front of his face, and he honestly can’t remember the timeline of events in between the end of Tony’s funeral and the start of this little meeting here. He thinks there was some food, awkward conversation made with Avengers who just looked guilty and uncomfortable to be there, and he kind of remembers Tony’s daughter, lovely little Morgan, showing him the guest room he was gonna stay in was. Because, unlike most of the guests, Harley’s needed for something. He thinks he heard someone murmur about Tony’s will, but he doesn’t bother to remember.

“Yeah,” Harley says, blinks harshly and tries to tether himself back into his own body. It’s the next day now. He had breakfast in the Stark’s kitchen, helped Rhodey make pancakes and nodded politely to the nameless boy that he’s yet to be properly introduced to. Breakfast is over now, and they’re all gathered in the living room, Pepper reverting from Pepper Stark, wife and mother, to Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries as she adjust the Stark Pad in her lap and folds her hands nearly over it. The nameless boy is on the other sofa, holding hands with an older woman that Harley assumes must be his mother, though they don’t look anything alike, and the rest of the room – Happy, Rhodey, Morgan, Pepper, and Steve, who is there to relay the necessary information back to the rest of the team – is stiff, silent, and still. Harley clears his throat, looks down at his lap, then looks up at Pepper. “Sorry. I’m listening.”

He’s not, really, but he tries to, manages to stay tuned in as Pepper picks up the Stark Pad and pulls up a holograph of the document she’s reading off of. The Avengers, which Tony has been funding from the get go, will continue to be funded by Stark Industries, with the management of whoever’s in charge of the company. As of now, that’s still Pepper. Morgan will inherit part of the company when she is old enough, if she decides she wants it, and Morgan looks like she actually understands what that means when Pepper says it, nods along solemnly before turning back to her coloring book. Happy gets some stuff, Rhodey gets a few things, and Steve looks contemplative and satisfied by the time he’s told that he can go.

Harley’s not all that sure why he’s still there when Rhodey leaves, too, followed shortly by Happy leading Morgan to the kitchen to start making some lunch. He doesn’t question it, though, just sits there with his nails digging into the meat of his palms, so fiercely that he might have broken the skin if he wasn’t shaking as badly as he is. He feels like he should still be in that suit he wore to the funeral yesterday, not in the ratty pajamas that he’d sluggishly packed when he was invited to this shitshow in the first place.

The only people left in the room are Harley, Pepper, the nameless boy, and the woman holding his hand. The woman looks at Pepper questioningly for a moment, and when Pepper nods, the woman murmurs something to the nameless boy and waits for him to whisper some kind of response before releasing his hand and leaving the room as well, following after Happy and Morgan to the kitchen. Harley doesn’t watch her go, nor does he look at Pepper, or the nameless boy, or even his own hands. He just closes his eyes and waits in the heavy silence for something to happen.

“Tony—” Pepper starts, but chokes on his names, swallows roughly and clears her throat before trying again. “Tony was very specific in his will. He left something to both of you. Something big.”

Harley keeps his eyes closed, takes a deep breath, and asks, “What is it?”

“Why?” he thinks he hears the nameless boy murmur, but neither him nor Pepper acknowledges it.

“A fraction of the company,” Pepper tells them simply, breezily, and now Harley’s eyes are open, open wide, bugging out of his head and looking at her incredulously because surely she must be mistaken. There’s no way Tony had left part of Stark Industries to Harley Keener. It’s not possible. But Pepper just tries for a smile, looks at the document in front of her, and reads the words aloud for both the boys to hear. “If alive,” she starts, “I wish for Stark Industries to be split three ways. One third to Morgan Stark, one third to Harley Keener, and one third to Peter Parker. Each will be able to start working and training for the company as soon as desired, but responsibilities and ownership will not begin until the age of twenty five. If any are to decline, than the percentage will change accordingly to whoever accepts.”

The nameless boy, apparently named Peter Parker, blinks once, eyes shimmery and red with tears, and all Harley can think to do is shake his head once in blatant disbelief. Peter parts his lips, clears his throat, and lets out a long, slow breath, before asking. “Are- Are you sure I’m supposed to be on there?”

And Pepper sounds certain when she says, “Yes, Peter, you are. Both of you are. If you choose to accept.”

Harley takes a long moment to process that information, thinks it over long and hard, tries to weigh his option in his mind. A yes or no question has never felt so impossible. “Would I have to move to New York?” he asks eventually, because it’s been quiet for too long and he feels as though he should have some more information before giving a final answer.

“Eventually, yes,” Pepper tells him, business-like, professional, but still somehow warm.

“Could my family move here, too? My Ma? Abbie?”

Pepper simply nods once, tells him, “You each have been given a floor to yourself at both the tower and the compound, regardless of your response to inheriting the company. You can say no and still move you and your family to New York, if that’s what you want. You can also wait until you’re twenty five to decide, or you can say yes now and start training as soon as possible. Tony wanted it to be your choice.”

“Because it wasn’t his,” Peter murmurs, staring down at the carpet with a vacant sort of look in his eyes, and Harley thinks that they must be somewhere on the same page, because Harley knows exactly what he’s saying – after Tony’s parents died, the company was thrown upon him unwillingly, and he was never told he had the choice to pass it on to someone else, never had the chance to say no. Now, he’s giving Harley the chance, giving this Peter kid that he’s never met but apparently was just as important to Tony the chance, and he’s giving Morgan the chance, too. They can say no. They get to choose.

Harley doesn’t need to think about it anymore.

“I’m in.”


	2. please explain to me why my chest still hurts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> peter parker is a little numb.

see i got gps on my phone

and i can follow it to get home

if my location’s never unknown

then tell me why i still feel lost

tell me why i still feel

— **human** by jon bellion

 

The first time it happens, it’s an accident.

Peter probably shouldn’t be back to patrolling as soon as he is, knows that his attention, his focus, his general mental health and well being is sort of tanking right now, but he does it anyway. He does it because he doesn’t know what else to do, because he thinks he needs it, some kind of normalcy. A hint of life before the snap, before the fight, before he watched Tony Stark die, heard his heart beat slow, slow, and stop. Being Spider-Man was such a necessary thing, it helped him as much as it helped everyone else.

Being in the suit just… it kind of fucks with his head, though. It’s too familiar, and it hits him, over and over again, that this isn’t life before the snap. This is life after, this is life now, and this fucking sucks.

New York isn’t the same as it was before. Five years of reconstruction, five years of buildings that were abandoned, that were never fixed because they weren’t needed with half the population gone, that are needed now that the population is back. Pepper has focused a lot of Stark Industries power towards helping rebuild the world, because the world is in shambles, and Peter isn’t much better, but he still puts on the suit and goes on patrol and he helps people and he stops bad guys and he tries to pretend it helps.

It doesn’t help.

Honestly, it only really makes things a lot fucking worse.

He doesn’t really notice how much worse it gets, though, because he tries not to have a single minute of down time, avoids letting himself think, because thinking leads to remembering, and remembering hurts. Midtown is still up and running, but the school year ended already, and now they’re trying to adjust for all the students that will be returning after the summer ends – Peter, Ned, and MJ included – so he can’t spend his weekdays doing homework as a distraction. Instead, he focuses a whole week on setting up his and May’s floor in the Stark Tower, having to get their stuff from storage because May had been snapped, too, and Tony hadn’t been able to convince the landlord to let him pay for their apartment, but he had managed to get everything packed up and stored away rather than having it all pined off to pawn shops. Peter supposes he’s grateful for that, because the mere idea of having to walk into that apartment after all of this is stifling. He’s not sure he’d be able to handle it.

Not that being at the tower is a whole lot better, but it’s still different. All his previous time at the tower has mostly been spent in the labs or in the guest room in Tony’s and Pepper’s penthouse floor. While the familiarity still lingers in the similar design of the floor that him and May are now living in, they’ve spent probably too much time in trying to decorate it, make it their own – mix together a feeling of the old apartment and their new home, a combination of their old life and their new one.

Pepper is also a bit more of a constant presence in their lives now, too, along with Morgan. While dealing with the aftermath of losing Iron Man and bringing back half the world, she decided to stay in the tower for the summer – because summer is training time, too, for Harley and Peter, three months that they can dedicate to learning how to own and run this billion dollar business, every summer until they’re both graduated from college and can finish up their training all year round. Peter is still a bit sick to the stomach with the idea of running Stark Industries one day, both in excited nerves and dreaded ones, but he wishes that he could start the training right away, because that would add something to his plate that can help distract him from thinking, remembering, and aching.

The only distraction he has, now that him and May are all moved in, and now that Pepper is waiting for Harley Keener to return from Tennessee with all his shit in boxes and his family by his side, is being Spider-Man, and once upon a time, being Spider-Man was enough. But now… he isn’t so sure.

“There’s a bank robbery happening in Brooklyn,” Karen tells him, just before the first incident that leads to his inevitable spiral. “Mapping the quickest route now. ETA of five minutes and three seconds.”

“Thanks, K,” Peter murmurs, doesn’t respond when she says _you’re welcome._ He throws his weight forward, off the edge of the building he’d been sitting on, and plummets a little bit longer than he should before shooting out a web and swinging forward, an uncertain mixture of feelings in his gut. Web swinging used to bring him the same kind of adrenaline rush as a real good roller coaster, made his stomach swoop and his heart stutter as he laughed and went as fast as he could. It still makes his stomach swoop now, too, but it isn’t in a very good way, just makes him feel even sicker, because he hasn’t stopped feeling sick since the day he was brought back from dust, nearly three weeks ago.

God, almost a month. It’s almost been a month since half the universe was brought back. Since Tony—

Nope. Not doing that. Not right now. Maybe not ever, if he can help it.

The bank robbery isn’t hard to deal with, most of it being handled on muscle memory alone, hostages safely making their way out within a few minutes of Peter showing up. It only goes awry when one of the gun wielding assholes manages to slip out a side door that Peter didn’t realize was there, that Peter probably would have realized was there if he was really as focused on his surroundings as he should be. Once he’s sure that the four other people who had contributed to this failed attempt at a heist are secured to the walls with his webs and are free of any other weapons or means of escape, he goes after the one that got out, offering the cops positioned outside a mocking sort of salute before having Karen check the traffic cams and tell him which way the guy went and where he is now.

Not too far, thankfully, which he quickly learns as Karen locates the guy via live traffic cam feed, telling Peter which way to go and how to get there faster. Once Peter is within a reasonable distance, he’s able to spot the guy easily, not even trying to blend in with the crowd as he ducks between people on the sidewalk, gun still in hand. It’s almost entertaining, in a way, but Peter knows that he has to, at the very least, get the weapon away in order to prevent any injuries or casualties, so he doesn’t waste any time before swinging ahead, dropping into an alley, and using his webs to pull the guy into the alley with him as he tries to run by. “I’m almost impressed,” he tells the guy, webbing one of his hands to the wall. “Only reason I saw you leave is ‘cause I heard the door creak. You almost made it, buddy.”

“Let me go,” the guy sneers, the gun pointed at Peter in the hand that isn’t stuck. Peter almost snickers, because surely the dude knows he isn’t make it out of this now, but he entertains him for a moment, holds his hands in the air and cocks his head to the side. This only seems to piss the guy off more, as he tries to rush at Peter but is stopped by the webbed up hand, so instead he just spits out, “You’re a fucking waste, Spidey, you know that? I used to think you were so fucking cool when I was a teen, but after half the world was gone, where the fuck were you, huh? You weren’t there! And now that Tony Stark is dead, you’re trying to act like a fucking hero again, but I spent five years watching people you should have saved fall apart around me, and I’m not fooled. I can see right through you, Spider-Man! You’re capitalizing off of Tony’s death, using it to boost your own fucking status, and I—”

Peter’s hands are shaking as he finally shoots a web at the gun, and he uses too much strength when he yanks it away, hears the snap of a few fingers breaking on the man’s hand, and Peter feels fucking sick to the core as he cries out in pain and holds his hand against his chest, but Peter doesn’t feel sick because of the broken fingers. He feels sick because this fucking asshole was trying to accuse him of manipulating the public into loving him, of taking Tony’s— of using his—

God, he can’t even bring himself to _think_ about Tony without choking up.

“I lost him,” Peter tells the guy, voice obviously wavering with each syllable. “The world lost Iron Man, but I lost Mister Stark. You want to know why I wasn’t here? It’s because I died, too, in Mister Stark’s arms, and less then twenty minutes after being brought back, I watched him die saving the universe. So don’t ever, _ever_ try to accuse me of using his death for my own benefit. The only reason I’m still in this suit is because I know for a fact that he’d want me to keep doing this if he were still here.”

The guy isn’t even listening to him anymore, is too busy cradling his injured hand against his chest and glaring daggers at Peter. “You broke my fucking fingers, you crazy asshole!”

Peter feels the need to apologize, to help, because he never wants to hurt people, never wants to be the cause of someone’s pain, but there’s a cold, twisted feeling in the pit of his gut that he knows, logically, is wrong, but it still wins the battle against his guilty conscience. When he turns on his heel, he doesn’t think twice before shooting out a web and swinging away, barely remembering to ask Karen to alert the police of where the guy is before making his way back to the tower for another night of restless sleep.

And it only gets worse from there.

 

 

 

 

At first, it’s the small things, an unnecessary bruise, a punch that could have been avoided, a few incidents of a broken finger or a dislocated shoulder, all of which could have been easily avoided if Peter had bothered to be more careful, but he doesn’t, can’t bring himself to care all too much. His mind has been all over the place since the battle, since he was brought back, but it’s slowly starting to focus on one thing: Tony gave his life to keep the universe safe, and these people are wasting that opportunity by committing crimes, cornering innocent citizens in alleyways and threatening to shoot up corner stores.

Peter feels no pity when they cry.

He doesn’t feel much of anything, though, to be honest. It’s almost as if his emotions are being held behind a locked door in his mind and he just can’t seem to get them back, and he’s not so sure if he even wants to. Mixed in the bunch is all of the agony that he’s been breathing in for far too long, the longing, the sorrow, the inevitable feeling of being incomplete as he misses his mother and his father and his uncle and Tony Fucking Stark, who may as well of been a father to him, too. Maybe having all those feelings locked away isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe he likes it when simply breathing doesn’t ache.

But he’s taking it too far, he knows, and he’s spirally down a path that would have horrified him a year ago, but with this overshadowing numbness seeping in his brain, he can’t bring himself to care. He swings too hard and breaks someone’s jaw and he doesn’t care, not anymore. He doesn’t care when they spit blood, doesn’t care when people start to look more wary than excited about him swinging past them, doesn’t care when Pepper tries to talk to him about how violent Spider-Man has gotten and May has to apologize on his behalf when he leaves the room without saying a god damn thing. He doesn’t care.

Harley Keener, apparently, does.

They still don’t really know each other, only spoke briefly after the funeral, mostly when Pepper sat them down and insisted they come up with a plan of action after they both informed her that they were accepting their individual thirds of Stark Industries. Harley had seemed nice enough, if not a little bit dazed and quiet, but Peter had spent each second at that house on the brink of tears and trying to battle a breakdown, so he supposes he’s in no place to judge. Not that he would, anyway, because even when Harley was dazed and quiet, he still offered a kind smile and shook Peter’s hand and said it was lovely to meet him and swore that he’d work his ass off to make sure he’s ready to handle a third of the company.

Peter had just sniffled, couldn’t really make himself smile, but still shook Harley’s hand and murmured something about how he’ll do his best to not be a letdown. He still isn’t sure if he meant a letdown to Harley, to Pepper, to May, or to Tony himself, but the words had still made Harley’s kind smile turn a little bit sad, and Peter had pretended not to notice before leaving the room.

So, that’s a plus, then – if Peter is going to have to run this company with someone (and eventually with Morgan, too, when she’s old enough), he’s glad it’s someone who’s nice. Or, at least, that’s what Peter thinks before Harley shows up and interferes with one of his patrols.

If he had been paying attention this morning, Peter would know that Harley was flying in today, with his mom and his sister and his mom’s husband and all of their stuff packed into neat boxes. Peter wonders if it was easy, asking them to uproot their lives and move with him to New York. He knows from the sit down with Pepper that Harley’s mother and sister hadn’t been turned to dust like him, that they had five years to grieve him and move on, and Harley sat there and listened as Peter told Pepper that he doesn’t really have anyone left other than May, Ned and MJ, and neither of them talked to one another about it, but they had shared brief eye contact and nods of solidarity before moving on. Again, a very small thing, something that doesn’t mean much in terms of bonding, but it helped solidify the fact that they would be getting along, eased Peter’s worry and tension just the slightest bit, make it feel a little easier.

And now Peter kind of wants to punch Harley’s stupid kind smile right off his stupid face because Peter was _trying_ to stop these drug dealers that had been making a deal in an alleyway and Harley just _had_ to round the corner with his hands already somewhat in the air, eyes taking in the scene quickly – two of the dealers already webbed to the wall, one with a busted lip and a broken nose, the other most definitely sporting a nasty concussion, and two more engaged in a fight with Peter, both of their guns already discarded a few feet away and covered in web to keep prying hands off. One of the dealers fighting him looks about ready to give up, keeps swaying on his feet thanks to a pretty hard kick to the back of his head that Peter hadn’t really bothered to hold back on, while the other dealer fighting him is actually managing to get a few hits of his own in, though Peter knows that his scrapes and bruises will be healed by morning, whereas this guy’s gonna be feeling his own injuries for quite some time after this.

His senses pick up on a new person approaching them, and he almost loses his patience and instinctively spins around to throw a knock out, jaw breaking punch, but he manages to restrain himself once he realizes that his senses aren’t screaming danger. Frowning, he dodges a weak throw from Stumbles McGee and manages to get a glimpse over his shoulder to see Harley casually strolling towards them, lowering his hands when he notices that Peter had already caught sight of him. Peter is so caught off guard by his appearance that he doesn’t have the chance to block the next punch thrown at him, which has just enough force to send him stumbling back with a curse, turning back to the dealers with his eyes narrowed down into the sort of glare the Spider-Man isn’t supposed to have, and he doesn’t even hesitate before he shoots out a web at Stumbles and pulls hard to the left, sending him crashing into the wall of the alley and effectively knocking him out, and part of Peter just thinks, _Good, finally. Now he won’t get back up._

“Jesus Christ,” Harley says as the dealer slumps on the ground, and Peter would probably be pretty pissed off if he was able to feel more than a dulled out version of his emotions.

The last dealer doesn’t seem ready to back down despite the fact that all their friends have been taken down, and Peter is about ten seconds away from attaching a web to both of their arms and just yanking as hard as he can when Harley suddenly steps in front of him. Peter freezes, grits his teeth. “What the hell?!”

“You already won,” Harley tells him simply, gesturing towards the webbed up dealers with a furrowed brow, some sort of frown set on his features. “Using full strength when there’s one guy left isn’t fair.”

“Does it look like I give a shit about what’s fair?” Peter sneers, his fingers twitching, itching to do something, to act, to take down the last dealer and go on with his night. If he didn’t already meet Harley, he probably would have already pushed him out of the way to get the job done, but he did meet Harley and he has the common sense not to shove the guy he’ll be co-running a business with eventually.

Harley’s eyes narrow a bit, arms crossing over his chest. “How do you think Tony would feel if he saw this? ‘Cause there’s no doubt in my mind that he wanted you to be better than not giving a shit.”

It’s a low blow, Peter thinks, but it does the job, settles like a ball of lead in the pit of his stomach and makes him feel sick, a dreadful chill running down his spine and making his hands curl into fists at his sides. His voice cracks, comes out weak and uneven as he says, “That’s not fair. That’s not _fucking_ fair.”

“Oh, so _now_ you care about what’s fair,” Harley says, brows raising slightly, and Peter’s blood somehow manages to boil and freeze over at precisely the same time. Before he can think of any sort of response, Harley just shakes his head, steps to the side with a strange sort of sigh, heavy and strained and definitely not the same as the quiet but kind smiled boy Peter had met at the funeral. “Secure him first,” he tells Peter, nodding towards the dealer that’s hovering a few feet away, looking ready to keep fighting despite having had the perfect opportunity to escape. Peter wonders if it’s a pride thing, or if they’re just that stupid. He pushes that thought away as Harley adds on, “We need to talk when you’re done.”

And then Harley strolls to the entryway of the alley, leans against the wall, and _waits_.

Numbly, Peter webs the dealer’s feet to the ground before they can even try to approach him, then webs their hands securely to the wall behind them, just for extra measure. The webbing is too strong for anyone who doesn’t have super enhanced strength to break through without some sort of external blade to help, but it’s just a sure fire way of making sure they can’t escape before the police show up – and they will be showing up in approximately three and a half minutes, according to Karen. That gives him three and a half minutes to take a deep breath, try and collect his thoughts, and then get him and Harley away from the scene before the cops can try and question either of them, which they definitely will and always do every time he’s still there by the time they pull up with their flashing lights that hurt Peter’s eyes.

He spends thirty seconds standing there and taking deep breaths, trying to calm his racing heart, before he spins on his heel and makes his way over to Harley, wasting no time before saying, “If we need to talk, we should move somewhere else. Cops will be here in a minute. Think you can hang on?”

“Hang on to what?” Harley asks, glancing at Peter with a cocked brow. Peter just stares at him expectantly, until understanding crosses Harley’s features, gaze flickering down to look at Peter’s web shooters with a sudden sense of uncertainty. “Wait, seriously? Can those things even hold both of us?”

“I mean, I’ve used weaker webbing for things that weigh a lot more than we do, so…”

Harley seems to consider this for a moment, then juts his chin up in some sort of nod as the echo of sirens start to approach. “Fine. Not too far, though, ‘cause I get motion sickness and I will one hundred percent puke on you, and it will not be pretty, and I’d rather not upchuck on a superhero my first night here.”

“You wouldn’t be the first,” Peter murmurs, wrapping an arm around Harley’s waist and quickly shooting a web at the building across the street, quickly pulling them onto the roof and keeps a hand on Harley’s hip to steady him after their feet hit the concrete. After a moment, Harley waves a hand through the air dismissively, shuffles back a few steps to put some space between them, and all Peter can do is let out a rough sigh, have Karen quickly scan the area for potential cameras, and then pull off his mask when she assures him that it’s safe to do so. “So?” he prompts Harley, impatient. “What’s there to talk about?”

“You,” Harley answers instantly.

Peter blinks, a bit stunned. “Me? You don’t even know me.”

Bunching up his shoulders in some kind of shrug, Harley says, “Yeah, maybe, but I’m gonna have to know you if we’re gonna work together. And I may not know you yet, but I’ve seen enough videos of Spider-Man from before, and that?” He nods down at the alleyway across the street, where the police are just now showing up, the dealers all still dazed and injured and webbed to the walls. “That’s not Spider-Man. That’s someone who’s letting their anger control them. You can’t be doing shit like that, Peter.”

“I’m not letting my anger control me,” Peter scoffs. “I’m not even angry!”

Harley doesn’t look convinced. “Really? ‘Cause I remember watching videos of Spider-Man apologizing to criminals if he so much as left a bruise on them. I remember videos of Spider-Man savings puppies from alleys and cats from trees. I never saw anything like this.”

Peter wants to protest, but he knows that Harley’s right. Instead, he just glares. “What’s the point of this?”

“The point,” Harley starts, “is that the first thing Pepper told me when I got to the tower is that you’ve been acting different. The point is that I wanted to spend tonight helping my Ma and her husband unpack, and maybe watch a movie with my sister, but Pepper looked so stressed and worried about you that I ended up saying that I’d try and talk to you about it. And, honestly, Peter, the point is that we both lost Tony and we’re dealing with it in our own ways, but you’re hurting people, and you need to stop. There’s no way in hell that Tony would be okay with you pulling this shit if he was still here.”

_Ouch._

Okay, so maybe kind smile Harley is a little bit ruthless. And maybe that fucking hurts, just a little bit.

“It doesn’t matter,” Peter says dully, shoulders slumping and posture sort of curling in on himself. “He’s not still here. He died to save the universe and these people are repaying that by committing the same shitty crimes and doing the same shitty things, and it doesn’t matter what he would think because at the end of the day, he’s still dead and these assholes are still doing the same shit they did before.”

“But you’re still hurting them,” Harley tells him. “Pepper showed me the last week of reports, and Spider-Man has been responsible for over two dozen injuries. What happens when you start to care less, when you keep saying it doesn’t matter and keep doing this? What happens when you do more than hurt them, huh? What happens when you kill someone, Peter?”

And Peter doesn’t mean to raise his voice, but that doesn’t stop it from coming out loud and croaky and pained as he exclaims, “I already fucking have!”

Harley falters, shocked. “What?”

Holding up two fingers, Peter lists, “My mom and dad—” a third finger, “—my Uncle Ben—” a fourth finger, hands now shaking, voice watery, uneven, “—and now Tony, too. They all had one common factor, and that was me. So, what happens when I kill someone? I add them to the list. That’s it.”

“No, that’s not it,” Harley insists, but he sounds a little less pissy and a little more soft. Peter just tightens his jaw, looks away and stubbornly blinks the tears out of his eyes because he can’t even _feel_ the sadness creeping up his spine, so why should he cry about it? Letting out a sigh, Harley scrubs a hand over his face, takes a moment to consider his words, and then carefully says, “Look, I know… I know we don’t really know each other yet, okay? And I know me just, like, showing up like this is probably not the best course of action, and that it probably isn’t even my business to be interfering like this, but… but Tony cared about you, right? He cared about you enough to give you a third of SI, he cared about you enough to make you a new suit, to put all this effort into trying to help you and keep you safe. I’ve seen some of the pictures and videos that Pepper has, and he… Tony cared about you like a son, Peter. And just thinking about how he would feel if he knew what you were doing, knowing that it’s not you, that it’s the grief… I can’t just sit back and do nothing. I don’t know you yet, but if Tony cared, then I care. So, yeah.” A moment of silence, where Peter does nothing but keep his head down and try to battle back the swelling of suppressed emotions that he doesn’t want to face right now, doesn’t want to have bubble over in front of this guy who’s practically a stranger, before Harley takes a subtle step forward and gently asks, “Are, um… I don’t wanna pry more than I already have, but you look… are you okay?”

The laugh that bursts out of Peter is involuntary, loud, and mixed in with a sob that aches and burns in the center of his chest, and before he can stop it, he’s shaking his head, his entire body hunching in on itself, shoulders shakings and tears streaming down his face, and he can barely manage to choke out, “No,” before he drops to his knees, arms crossing over his stomach, and _heaves._

“Shit, okay, um—” Harley moves quick, kneels at Peter’s side and pushes his hair out of his face with one hand, using the other to rub soothing circles against the center of Peter’s back, trying not to wince as the little food that Peter’s been able to stomach comes back up with a gurgle and another rough sob. “Let it out,” he murmurs, and if Peter wasn’t currently throwing up on a random roof in Queens, he might have made some kind of comment about how uncomfortable and out of his element that Harley sounds, might have even joked about it, laughed a bit, but Peter can’t do that when it feels like he’s being shredded from the inside out and all his focus is on trying not to choke on his own bile.

There’s not much that’s able to come up, so it doesn’t take long before he’s just dry heaving, coughing roughly and spitting out the horrible taste left in his mouth. Harley keeps rubbing circles against his back, keeps pushing Peter’s head from his forehead to keep it out of his eyes, and Peter feels so bone-deep exhausted once he’s able to breathe again that all he can do is sort of slump into Harley’s side. Harley hesitates for a moment, then carefully wraps an arm around Peter’s shoulder to make him a bit more comfortable, only to freeze when Peter quietly admits, “I had it, you know.”

Harley doesn’t respond for a long moment. “Had what?”

“The gauntlet,” Peter whispers, tries to take a deep breath as his lower lip wobbles. “I had it when we were fighting Thanos. We, uh- we were trying to find this van in the rubble, ‘cause it had, like, a smaller version of the machine that they used to travel back in time and get the stones or something, and I ended up with the gauntlet. It was with me, and if I had done something, maybe it wouldn’t have ended up back to Tony, and maybe he wouldn’t have had to… _fuck._ I just. I know I could have done something that could have stopped him from dying. I don’t know what, but I could have done _something.”_

“That doesn’t make it your fault,” Harley says. “No offense, but your list is bullshit.”

This draws out a weak chuckle from Peter, but it gets drowned out quickly by another wave of tears that waste no time in cascading down his red, blotchy cheeks. All the numbed out feelings are slowly making their way to the surface again, scratching at his skin and making his lungs ache, and it hurts, makes him delirious, fucks up his ability to think straight. “I could’ve saved Ben, too,” he whimpers, squeezing his eyes shut to try and stop the tears that keep coming anyway. “I saw- I saw the gun, and I had the strength, had these powers, but I was frozen and I just watched as he got shot and I sat there and tried to stop the bleeding but there was so much blood and it wouldn’t stop and he- he died telling me that it’d be okay. He- and- and Tony, and my parents, and- and it _keeps fucking happening_ and I can’t- I _can’t—"_

Harley stays silent, just turns Peter a bit until he can properly hug him, rocks them lightly from side to side as Peter starts to cry harder, neither of them bothering to speak.

There’s nothing else they need to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next song is fashion (by, obviously, jon bellion, lmao) and it is a harley centric chapter. feel free to listen to the song and assume where i'm going w it B)

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is spidey-lad feel free to yell at me or something


End file.
